If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt. - G M Trevelyan

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Know Your Rights

“Number 4 - You have the right to be told, by those in authority at our cricket grounds, exactly what is going on… unless those in authority happen to be the ICC & the ECB.”

I've just got back from The Oval. The lack of information given to spectators was astonishing and scandalous. Yes, quite a few people knew what was going on because of the handy little radios you can buy now - and through mobile phone calls to those in front of the television, but that's beside the point.

From 4 o'clock, to after 6 pm, there were precisely NO official announcements to tell us what was happening.

One by-product of this was that the Pakistanis were roundly, and unjustifiably booed when they came on the field – I bet Darrell Hair got a good laugh out of that - plus the ECB fossils who still run the game in this country. What happened to Inzamam and his team was positively Kafkaesque in terms of accusations and convictions without evidence and statements.

If the boot had been on the other foot and England had been accused of ball-tampering on what seems to be pretty flimsy evidence, there’d have been an outcry with calls for parliament to reconvene to discuss the issue.

Let’s have a guess as to what the tabloids make of it tomorrow morning…

People I’ve spoken to who were watching the Sky coverage at home have said that as an example of a live telecast on a unexpected event with very little information being given by those in control, it was exemplary. (Obviously Bob Willis being absent from the booth helped their cause in that respect)

Sky managed to get their act together – it’s just a shame that the ICC couldn’t.